Validity of Micro/macro-evolution idea

Explain to me how the higher taxa emerge by the slow gradual accumulation of mutations without leaving any evidence of internediate forms? That is the conundrum. That is what suggests there may be another mechanism at work which is responsible for these larger evolutionary steps. That is what justifies the possible distinction between micro and macro evolution.

SpuriousMonkey what makes you say we have messed the thread up? Go ahead and bring it back to the topic you think we have deviated it from.

 

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Where would you hope to find that evidence? In the structure of currently living things? Such as vestigiasl organs or Panda-bear thumbs?

Or are you thinking more about the fossil record?

 

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Saquist, you bring up a great number of things that most 'evolutionists' try not to look at. But I, for one, think this is because of a misunderstanding of the process, and not because evolution is inherently incorrect. Though I may be wrong as well.

It is my understanding that mutations are not the main source of evolutionary change, as outlined by Mendel's work. His work on inheritence of genes showed that change could occur just because of genes, and without need for any mutations. One study showed that two plants with genes for tall stems reproduced to make a new plant that grew taller than either of its parents.

Also, you ask "Would any process that resulting in harm more than 999 times out of 1,000 be considered benefical?"
Now, think of it this way, if you will. Perhaps the large amount of harmful mutations kill off gene lines that are weaker and ensure that the more beneficial ones will survive and repopulate in larger numbers. It seems that in evolution, death is a very important factor in that it makes way for more life, life that is perhaps better equipped with adapting or dealing with the present environment.

You say that "Even if all mutations were benefical, they couldn't produce anything new". I disagree. Any change at all in the order and pattern of the DNA structure constitutes new material. The whole organism is new if the DNA is different in any way. A simple switch of a letter or a gene is turned on when before it was off, will be "new information". In a pattern, 'new' is merely a reassembly of what is already present.

Also, what is to stop this plant with larger and stronger roots to develop thicker roots until it form juicy deposits where it stores nutrients? What if it continues to 'select' for these certain traits, over and over again? The plant will most certainly be a lot different in a few million, or maybe even just a few thousand years. But you don't even want to give it that amount of time. You seem to want to see this change in only a few hundred years. Nature is many times more patient than we are.

Also, I care little for odds and probabilities. In our universe, very much is possible. All probabilities are 1 in retrospect.

 

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It is my understanding that this relationship between proto-DNA and protein is circular, such that one develops the other and vice versa, as Dickerson says (though I must say I have no clue who the guy is). It is simply a natural relationship that caused both to develop simultaneously and symbiotically. They appear so inseperable now because they have developed together for so long they they cannot work alone anymore. I mean, we're talking of billions of years of change here.

 

I understand.

 

How can it be improbable, and impossible?

Never mind. Please show your evidence that evolution (macro evolution if you wish) is impossible and then I'll prove that it's impossible for someone to come back from the dead, walk on water, turn water into wine, etc. LOL!

 

WSIOYNW... an event may be improbable it's not necessarily impossible.

For instance it may be against the odds (probability) to roll a pair of dice to land on 12 five times in a series of rolls...but it's not impossible.

Just as indefinite can include forever or an unspecified amount of time.
(just an analogy) thus the need to specify.

 

For fucks sake. Mendel was trying to proof the existence of God. Hence he was mighty displeased with his pea work. Which he gladly abandoned to work on a plant that is so genetically fucked up that it was more suitable for proving that god exists. Mendel wanted to proof that you can make totally new species by just making crosses. The peas were so shit for this because they inherited their shit so nicely.

Everybody thinks it is stupid that Darwin didn't notice mendel's work, but they are looking at mendel's work with modern glasses. Back in the day Mendel's work was nothing special. Just another monk trying to prove God's work.

 

I expect the answer to emerge from detailed understanding of how genes are expressed, the role of junk DNA, a fuller awareness of developmental biology, and the like. I would not expect the fossil record to offer much that is novel in this direction.

 

That is false. Your "empirical perspective" is based on false assumptions. For one, reproduction did not "begin" with the current - or any - genetic code.

Likewise your 'probability" assertions - based on false assumptions, again.
You do not understand the Darwinian theory of evolution. You don't know how it works, and so you take mistakes and irrelevancies as contradicting a theory they actually, interpreted with understanding, support if anything.

The odds against spontaneous formation of a chromosome, for example, fully support the Darwinian contention that such structures form as accumulated consequences of many steps beginning with some much different and simpler structure(s).

You make ignorant assumptions, draw illogical conclusions from even them, and call that "facing the facts". Nothing you have posted here has anything to do with facts. That is why you insist on arguing from authority rather than arguing from facts of your own. Authority, selected by you, is all the argument (as opposed to assertion) you have presented here so far.

Quit quoting flakes like Fred Hoyle, and argue from facts. Then we can face your facts. So far there are none to be faced.

Here's a fact: neutral and beneficial mutations and restructurings are common. They often add new information to the genome. Over time, unless prevented, they will accumulate to whatever degree is required to certify the genome as having "macro" evolved. Any amount of evolutionary change in the genome - up to and including complete replacement - is not only possible but inevitable unless prevented.

 

When can we discuss evolution without religious nutters derailing the thread?

 

I agree, which is why I asked the question since in your previous post you stated that macro evolution was improbable and impossible. It was purely semantics.
You didn't offer up your evidence though...do you care to?

 

Then do you still disagree that macro-evolution is possible?

 

Speaking with you is much like addressing a wall, iceaura, words are said spoken to the wall but nothing relevant ever comes back. Those quotes were for your benefit. I am not the orignator of these ideas nor am I on the trailing edge of their theories.

I care not for who you classify as flake. Your belief system is has nothing relatating the objective study I do relate too. Attacking Hoyle means nothing to me. The contradictions I seek will never be in one of your post as an ambigous entity on a forum with a made up identity.

Therefore you may feel free to dictate your opinion as "fact" or accepted but it will always be placed away from what I'm looking for. Be as absolutely obtuse as you wish to be. The information I post reflects my research and nothing else.

If you need an authority figure so badly I suggest your parents, boss, a prime minister or the like that can assist you in wading through the vague non published information that is posted as "fact" on these forums.

 

Semantics suggest there was no discernable difference...but possible and impossible are quite dicernable as different. If you agree...it's with yourself.

Improbable doesn't mean impossible.

 

What is this barrier between micro and macro evolution?

 

I"m concerned with only what the facts show. As an outside observer of the inner workings of the scientific circle I'm observing contradiction and contention in the evolutionary theory and acceptance. This information I've posted...which there is more of...relates how scientist from the begining looked upon this theory with the utmost incredulousness.

After reading several of Pattens books I've noticed this thread toward evolution has had alterior motives. Without going into every thing he said it appears he was right about the organization that emerged and embraced Darwin's theories. As the decades progress the initial objections appeared to have been stifled down.

These probability factors remain to this day as pubished proof of non comformity in scientific circles and that which has expanded into classroom settings to influence the next generation. These odds , probabilities, haven't been faced by the scientific community. The facts illistrated by these and many more gentlemen, fly in the face of reason. Downward trends do not become upward trends, progress is not made by walking backwards. If these probabilities were offered in the class room...probabilities that scientist evo and anti-evo aggreed upon from the begining would society have embraced this theory at all?

What I see when researching the past of evolution shows a strong thread of disbelief and lack of creditable probability and creditable process. Over time these gentleman fell out of favor, or die or became outnumbered. Classrooms were being taught to think outside the biblical box. Nothing wrong with that, however the direction taken was wrong. A clear intent to prove the bible a sort of fairytale. And intresting and yet unscientific scientific objective A new generation appeared to take over. Anti-biblical, anti-historical and anti-reason became prevailing in biolgical science studies. They claimed this was to do away with accepting bible facts as scientific facts. (again) nothing wrong with this. Yet gentleman like Newton and Kepler, catastrophist, didn't seemed hindered by their biblical views even if they were. They didn't go into the how. They accpeted certain things as foregone conclusions but...they were...they need emperical data. The move to emperical research solely was supposed to be revolutionary in science...instead it became a religous battering ram. A blunt object fashioned to get rid of God with the most insane odds attached to it, with a theory of spontaneous generation that had already been disporved by Pastuer.

In the end untill these gentleman's statements are addressed and countered soundly and the odds soundly revised it is stock I can never by into. The world around us is based on probability. We make decisions on it everyday...we take risk on the odds. I have a problem seperating evolution from those other tangible odds and numbers that envolve life away as a seperate consideration.

No, untill the forces of evolution are defined and the theory it's self emerges from an obsucre indefinite confluence of chance, it remains quite impossible and as I've shown, not on my word but on the word of scientist.

 

Your own justification can be used against you. You are right in the second quote shown above. Not in the first.

Scientists and people in general look upon any radical change in reasoning with "incredulousness." You're siding with the same people who argued against those who said the world was round. In science, visible contradiction and diverse views are welcome, in order to bring a more rounded perspective to the whole idea. But, as with any human collective, a oligarchy usually forms by those with the most influence. But most of the time they are unaware of their strict bias. Sometimes its for good reason, for if they looked at every tiny possibility, nothing would ever get done to the point that it could be used for practicality.

What "probability factors". We are still discovering what exactly constitutes a downward or upward trend. They are based on things that we don't know, so who are you to determine the exact nature of it? The only reason evolution is taught in a science class is because it has a relatively long history of being researched scientifically. That is, as scientifically as any other science practiced by man. The only difference is the complexity of this particular subject. For one, almost all of the possible physical evidence (fossils) has been destroyed or is unretrievable (through geological process). So the only other trail we can follow is a jumbled maze of clues embedded in our very genes.

I agree that there was a strong movement in science fueled by anti-theism. But its largely worn off, and anti-theism today is, for the most part, an immature retaliation. Or at least I'd like to think so.
Thing is, we can't go from one extreme to another, as most revelatory periods do. We can't go from using science mainly to disprove god straight to tearing down science so it can co-exist with theology. There has to be a middle ground. At this point, all I see from creationism and ID is the opposite of the spectrum from atheistic/materialistic/scientific thinking. But the nature of science makes it the most objective way of thinking, and if we were to take the scientific method more literally, then we wouldn't have to seperate science from atheism and materialism. Science should have nothing to do with any ideology. If this were so, then perhaps we could actually find out the true nature of evolution. But not until that is so.

Personally, I am able to seperate most scientists and science writers bias one way or another such that I can gleam some facts from what they are saying. That, coupled with what I have observed first hand forces me (I do not believe, I am forced to believe) that evolution is true. As for the details, I cannot say.

 

Anything can be "justified or rationalized" it dozn't make for reason, so while my justifications can be used against me...they can't be used reasonably.

I don't agree that anti-theist setiments have worn off. I believe the reaction on this Forum and on File Front show that scientific followers have a genocidal attitude to the bible, religion and history. Something to be removed. That's a gross miss use of science.

 

So basically you're saying that just because you can deny the validity of statistics that debase your own ideas, I can't? I don't get you, man.